Her aunt arose, gathering her silken wrappings about her tall, elegant form. "Well, I must go now," she said. "I see it is of no use talking to you. Come and see me when you feel better, Xenie." "I am going to the country next week," said her niece, abruptly. "Indeed? Has not your mother been up to see you in your trouble?" inquired Mrs. Egerton, pausing in her graceful exit. "No. I wrote to her, but she has neither come nor written. I fear something has happened. She is usually very punctual. Anyway, I shall go down next week and stay with them a week or two." "I hope the change may improve your spirits, love," said her aunt, kissing her and going out with an airy "_Au revoir_." CHAPTER VII. "Mamma, how pale and troubled you look. What ails you?" Mrs. St. John was crossing the threshold of the little cottage home that looked, oh, so poor and cheap after the stately brown-stone palace she had left that morning, and after one quick glance into her mother's careworn face she saw that new lines of grief and trouble had come upon it since last they had met. "Come up into my room, Xenie. I have much to say to you," said her mother, leading the way up the narrow stairway into her bedroom, a neat and scrupulously clean little room, but plainly and almost poorly furnished. Mrs. Carroll was a widow with only a few barren acres of land, which she hired a man to till. Her husband was long since dead, and the burden of rearing her two children had been a heavy one to the lonely widow, who came of a good family and naturally desired to do well by her two daughters, both of them being gifted with uncommon beauty. But poverty had hampered and crushed her desires, and made her an old woman while yet she was in the prime of life. Xenie removed her traveling wraps and sat down before the little toilet glass to arrange her disordered hair. "My dear, how pale and sad you look in your widow's weeds," said Mrs. Carroll, regarding her attentively. "I was very sorry to hear of your husband's death. It is very sad to be left a widow so young--barely twenty." "Yes," answered Xenie, abstractedly; then she turned around and said abruptly: "Mamma, where is my sister?" Mrs. Carroll looked at her daughter a moment without replying. "I have brought her some beautiful presents," continued Mrs. St. John, "and you, too, dear mamma--things that you will like--both beautiful and useful." Mrs. Carroll looked at her daughter a moment in utter silence, and her lips quivered strangely. Then she caught up a corner of her homely check apron, and hiding her convulsed face in its folds, she burst into bitter weeping. Xenie sprang up and threw her arms around the neck of the agitated woman. "Oh, mamma," she cried, anxiously, "speak to me. Tell me what ails you? Where is Lora?" As if that name had power to open the flood gates of emotion wider, Mrs. Carroll wept more bitterly than ever.